At times weary, at times sparkling with wonder, The Imitation Blues is a fierce meditation on what is lost, what is found. The poems here are burly, flexing, but there is grace in all the musculature. Political, but never indulgent; profound, but never ephemeral. These poems are deeply rooted. A tough guy eye on mortality, but a tender heart revealed as he squints. “This losing is what we do,” Gibbons professes, but this collection is a gift you will find meaning in, again and again.

—Richard Fifield, author of The Flood Girls

This man has decided not to coat his tongue in silver. He has covered it with tree bark and Clark Fork River water. He reveals to us, the truth, the dishonesty, the actuality of how humans discover themselves. A true master who calls to the animals inside us, those beasts who know this is a good place.

—Monty Campbell, Jr., author of A Large Dent in the Moon

Insofar that The Imitation Blues makes us descend into the root cellars of the poet's heart and history, it will also praise the living and light of our days. These pages pour libation and summon the dead: John Lennon, Johnny Cash, Jack Kerouac, Jack Spicer, Ed Lahey, Guy Lombardo, Smelley the cat, and dear departed friends and family. In these poems, a lost mother will keep sowing. A father will keep working a brutal graveyard shift. Reader, don't be afraid. There's a party going on. Dylan Thomas will guide us through Golden Gate Park! I've been a fan of Gibbons' poetry for almost twenty years, and this is classic Gibbo. These poems tell the truth, and they are unafraid.